Californication

At the beginning of January we Jetted off to California for a week full of sun, fun and Mickey Mouse!

Bye Bye REALITY!

We left just in time, as the day after we left winter reared it ugly head and Alberta turned in to a giant snow globe.

Dora, our airplane life saver!

We started our journey in San Diego.  After a fairly uneventful flight (William fell a sleep 10minutes before we landed); we had an eventful experience picking up our rental car.  We will not get in to specifics but we learnt some valuable lessons!  Finally we headed to our hotel (after a quick trip to Burger King-- West jet only gives you cookies and juice for snack!).   We stayed right in OLD TOWN SAN DIEGO, the first settlement in California.  It was a great area, close to pretty much everything we wanted to do.

Interesting Church name.

So happy!  Watch out for Cactus's!

Anything in there William?

The first night we toured around the historical Old Town settlement; and when I say toured, I mean chased after our child and tried to make sure he didn't fall in to a cactus, unfortunately i should have been watching Clayton closer, because not two minutes after I stated " CLAY, watch that he doesn't touch one of those cactus's!"  Clay ran his shoulder into one... Thank god to long sleeve shirts!  

Our list of things to do in San Diego included; Sea World, The San Diego Zoo, Coronado Island and a harbor cruise were we got to see Sea Lions and Some army Navy ships.  I would suggest all of these adventures in San Diego and we had a great time!  A word of advice would be to invest in a good map or have GPS handy... Usually we are very good at navigating in strange city's however in San Diego we got to 'experience' many out of the way areas of San Diego.  The Free maps they give you ARE NOT sufficient!

Shamu

Beauty shot of the Harness

the "leash"  Doesn't really work for William, he tends to pull to the end and fall down in a hissy.

Playing with Sting rays

The Killer Whale

Sesame Park at Sea World... William playing with the foam blocks... Wondering where he gets this organization impulse?

First Ride ever




We didn't realize how bad this looked until after!

Sea Lion male on the Harbor cruise... He's saying..."that's right I'm Awesome!"

 


Building a New navy Ship from the hull up... Pretty neat!  Lots of cool Ships to look at on the Harbor cruise... We did a 2hr cruise, because William fell asleep!



The Famous Sailor kissing a Nurse from Times Magazine...  Our take on it...However Clay sucks and only pretended to kiss me... Nice huh!









Playing on the Beach at Coronado Island






William and Frank the Gorilla playing tag... So cute! Frank would tap on the glass and run then William would chase him.



William was AMAZING.... Take that anyway you want! 
He slept, ate nothing but french fries, cookies and apple juice, ran away from us in large groups, enjoyed lots of kids rides,laughed and smiled allot!  Totally worth it!

After 4 days in San Diego we loaded up the Ford Focus and drove 3hrs to  LA.  We got to experience LA traffic which is wonderfully frustrating.  An impromptu decision to go to Universal Studios gave us this amazing experience!  Clayton and I discussed what we wanted for this trip.  And both accepted the fact that travelling with a Toddler means that we will not see EVERYTHING.  The most important thing was too make sure we all enjoyed the trip.  Translation=  Make sure William has fun!  So at Universal we did what was fun for William.  We met Dora, Curious George, Shrek and SpongeBob!  Then we played for over an hour in this place that was like a GIANT ball popper room!  It was like a dream come true for William!  LOL!

The ball popper room!  Tonnes of little foam balls and air popper guns, vacuum's and other things that shoot balls everywhere!

After our wonderful 1/2 day at Universal we did the hour trek back thru LA to Anaheim and DISNEYLAND!  Our hotel was about a 10minute walk from our room to inside the park, it was awesome!
Disneyland was a blast!  We spend 3 days exploring the park, meeting Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and Chip and Dale!  There was lots of rides that William could go on!  We even went on Pirates of the Caribbean, which I was afraid would be too intense but he just sat there, held my hand and absorbed all the 'YO-HO HO, its a Pirates life for me!'.

Welcome To Disneyland!!!

The Tea cups!  We were spinning pretty fast!

Mickeys house... and Chair!

Pluto's bed



William's First roller Coaster ride!



Tea at Minnie's house

Caged animal!

The Jungle cruise!

Have a MICKY  DAY!

California Adventure park had a great night time show called "World of Color".  It was an amazing fountain, light and laser show!  It really helped make our experience MAGICAL!!! 

A ride at California Adventure's Its a Bug's life.

The Ferris wheel

Climbing about in the Forest adventure area!






I got stuck



Another interesting tunnel!



Watching the World of Color show

A small clip from the show

Cars!

William LOVED the Merry go Round!

Reactions to Its a Small World!  yeah....

William really checking out the Its a Small world Ride

Drives like his Mommy!

So many amazing moments were had during our trip! There was several interesting challenges travelling with a toddler.  And Clayton and I made some changes to the way we think when we travel.  We really don't have to see and do EVERYTHING, we just have to ENJOY EVERYTHING we do and see!


What we came home too! 

LA +27c

  



-25 in Whitecourt with 4ft of snow!

Sindy Travelled with us this time!